Chapter 4 - The Professor's Secret
"He's bluffing," Tasha hissed, her back pressed against the brick wall. "He can't just call the cops to arrest you!"
"He can," Eleanor said, her voice tight. "Richard has half the city council in his pocket, and the police chief is a personal friend of his. If he claims Jasmine stole proprietary trade secrets, they will arrest her first and ask questions later. And while she's in custody, his lawyers will strip her of her parental rights, claiming she’s an unfit mother who ran away from her own wedding with stolen property."
"We need to go," Jasmine said, panic rising. She looked at the corner where the triplets were waking up, rubbing their eyes, terrified by the loud voice outside. "We need to run again."
"No," Eleanor said, stepping in front of her. "There is nowhere left to run, Jasmine. He will track you to the ends of the earth for Taylor Shield. It’s time to stop running. It's time to fight back."
"How?" Jasmine asked, gesturing to the warehouse. "He has an army out there! We have a tablet and a couple of computers!"
Eleanor took a deep breath. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small, encrypted flash drive. It was old, its casing scratched and worn.
"Because Richard Caldwell has a ghost in his closet," Eleanor said quietly. "And I’ve been keeping her safe for ten years."
Jasmine stared at her mentor. "Eleanor... what are you talking about?"
"Ten years ago, before Richard was the billionaire savior of Chicago tech, he had a business partner," Eleanor explained, her eyes filled with a deep, painful memory. "A brilliant systems architect named Dr. Sarah Jenkins. They developed a cloud infrastructure project together. But just before they went public, Sarah 'accidently' fell from the balcony of her apartment. She survived, but she was left in a coma. Richard claimed sole ownership of the technology, which became the foundation of Caldwell Enterprises."
"Oh my god," Tasha whispered.
"Sarah was my sister," Eleanor said, a tear finally escaping her eye. "I knew Richard did it. I knew he pushed her, or had her pushed, to steal her life's work. But I couldn't prove it. His money bought the police, the investigators, everyone. I took this job at Lakeshore to keep an eye on him, waiting for him to make a mistake. When he targeted you, Jasmine, I knew I couldn't let history repeat itself. But I needed proof."
"Do you have it?" Jasmine asked.
"On this drive," Eleanor said, holding up the flash drive. "It contains Sarah's original, uncorrupted source files, with digital signatures that match the core architecture Richard claims he built. But more importantly, it contains the metadata showing Richard accessed her personal accounts the night of her 'accident.' Combined with the security hack data on your tablet, it proves a ten-year pattern of corporate espionage, attempted murder, and fraud."
"But how do we use it?" Jasmine asked. "If we give it to the police, Richard's people will intercept it before it ever reaches a courtroom."
"We don't give it to the police," Jasmine said, a sudden spark of determination igniting in her chest. She looked at her children, who were now standing by her side, holding onto her trousers. She looked at Zach, who was looking at her with absolute trust. "We give it to the world."
"The Midwest Tech Summit," Tasha said, her eyes widening as she caught Jasmine’s drift. "It's tomorrow night at the McCormick Place. Richard is the keynote speaker. He’s scheduled to unveil his 'new' cybersecurity platform to over five thousand tech investors, media outlets, and global leaders."
"He's going to use my software to cement his empire," Jasmine said, her voice growing cold and steady. "We let him. We let him get up on that stage, in front of the entire world. And then, we hijack the feed."
"How do we get in?" Eleanor asked. "Security will be impenetrable. He'll have facial recognition at every entrance."
"We don't need to get in," Jasmine said, looking at Zach. "We just need to be close enough to access the local network. And I have the ultimate decryption key." She tapped her own head. "The core of Taylor Shield is my code. I built a back-door protocol into the kernel—a master key I never documented. No matter what Richard did to 'rebrand' it, my key will still work. I can take control of the entire presentation system from a laptop in the parking lot."
Outside, Richard’s voice boomed again. "Three minutes, Jasmine! I’m calling the police!"
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"We need a distraction," Tasha said, looking around the warehouse. Her eyes landed on a rack of heavy-duty backup batteries and chemical fire extinguishers. "Eleanor, do you still have that old smoke generator from the chemistry department?"
Eleanor smiled, a sharp, dangerous glint in her eyes. "In the back closet. It's fully charged."
